Monthly archives for December, 2015

Publicists declare each film release “Great.” But what about films with GREAT in the Title?

What’s the first film that comes to mind? The Great Train Robbery? After all that’s considered the first film (with a plot) that was ever released.

There are dozens of films with Great in the title but we naturally are going to stick with ones we consider to be classics — or at least good old films still worth a look.

Let’s start with one of Joe’s favorites, The Great McGinty. This is the 1940 comedy written and directed by Preston Sturges and the first in his series of superior films with his “stock” company at Paramount in the early 40s. It stars Brian Donlevy and AkimTamiroff, one of very favorite character actors. And it’s about corrupt politicians. Sound current?

That same year Chaplin released The Great Dictator and it remains a classic. His imitation of Hitler and Jack Oakie’s imitation of Mussolini are priceless. The ending is a bit weak, but let’s give the genius some slack on this one. After all World War II was still raging and the outcome was still in doubt at the time. The fact that he made such a daring film is spectacular enough. It is a testament to the power of good filmmaking.

The Bette Davis/George Brent/Mary Astor programmer The Great Lie is by no means a classic but shows what top actresses of the screen can do with a corny script to make it compelling.

The 1950s gave us The Great Caruso. Predictable story line but wonderful technicolor and the voice of Mario Lanza and the beauty of Ann Blyth.

The Great movie of the 1960s is, of course, The Great Escape.

More recent films we might suggest include The Great White Hope, The Great Santini and The Great Muppet Caper.

Here’s a tale of two actresses who responded very differently to the blandishments of one Johnny Stompanato (in mug shots above.)

Who he? Please read on.

First, we must marvel yet again at how close were the links between the movie studios in the Forties and Fifties and organized crime.

The big studios today are run as faceless corporate entities by interchangeable bureaucrats operationally on another planet from the Bugsy Siegels and Mickey Cohens of Hollywood lore.

But back then, gangsters were required by studio bigwigs for all manner of purposes — both business and personal — and it was not uncommon for mobsters to date actresses.

In 1950, Janet Leigh was a young, aspiring star still living at home with her parents. She was perplexed by the bouquets of flowers accompanied by Billy Eckstine records that arrived daily with a card simply signed, ‘Johnny.’ Finally, a phone call.

No — you don’t know me. But I know and admire you and would like to take you out. In her 1984 memoir There Really Was A Hollywood, Leigh told the deep masculine voice on the line that while she couldn’t date a total stranger, he was welcome to come to meet Janet — accompanied by her parents. She thought the offer would end the discussion, but she was wrong.

At 6 p.m. sharp in walked a tall, powerfully built, dark-haired, extremely handsome man who had just parked a Cadillac in the driveway. ’I'm Johnny, he announced before settling in for a pleasant round of conversation with Janet’s parents during which he described himself as a ’businessman.’

Fast forward to the couple’s first date with Stompanato taking Janet to a private club near the Pacific Coast Highway south of Malibu. Over coffee, no less, he tendered a proposal. Janet, I am going to tell you something now — something about me — that is highly confidential. I must trust you with this, because I want you to be ‘my girl.’

I am a syndicate man, a member of the mob. This lounge is frequented only by those on the inside who are in the know and in good standing. When one of us takes a girl, he has to be sure of her loyalty…my name is Johnny Stompanato.

Flabbergasted at what he just said, Janet’s surprise quickly turned to panic. Assuring him that their conversation was indeed confidential, she blurted out that she just couldn’t handle your profession. Johnny offered to take her home. He did, and that was the last Leigh ever heard from him.

Born in 1925 in Woodstock, Illinois, Stompanato went to a military high school before joining the Marines in 1943, and seeing combat in the Pacific. After a failed marriage, he arrived at age 22 in Hollywood in 1948, and quickly connected with Cohen, according to author Tere Tereba’s biography of the gangster, Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.’s Notorious Mobster.

Johnny’s FBI file describes him as a procurer of girls for Mickey Cohen’s out-of-town contacts. The LAPD blunt characterization: a notorious pimp. Cohen described him as lacking a ‘vicious nature,’ a lover, not a fighter. His bedroom prowess quickly became legendary, writes Tereba. Oscar, his nickname, referred to the Academy Award-winning size of his phallus.

Enter Lana Turner. Stompanato, using the pseudonym of John Steele and presenting himself as a record producer, began courting the 35-year-old star in the mid-Fifties when her career was in a funk.

Flowers, jewelry, flattery was in his arsenal and soon Lana was hooked, calling him as many as five times hourly. Stompanato also paid attention to Turner’s adolescent daughter, Cheryl.

But there were also threats and reports of physical abuse.

The end of the affair came on a rainy Good Friday night, April 4, 1958, with the information that Stompanato’s dead body could be found on the floor of the pink bedroom of Lana’s Bedford Drive residence.

An eight-inch kitchen knife had been shoved into his solar plexis, piercing his aorta and kidney. Cheryl Crane was found to have committed justifiable homocide in trying to defend her mother, writes Tereba.

The saga of the star and Stompanato is one of Hollywood’s most enduring scandals. Many articles and books have been written over the years about the end of oh-so gentlemanly ‘Oscar.’

SandraDee, who wasn’t in Grease, represented the wholesome girl next door, and the song satirizes that image. Sandra didn’t mind. In fact, she got a kick out of her mention. In any case, song denotes that the teenage star of the 50s and early 60s was a household name. In fact Sandra Dee was one of the top ten box office stars four years in a row from 1960 though 1963.

Thus her elevation to Monday Quiz status. How much did you really know about Sandra Dee? Let’s refer to yesterday’s questions (see the blog below for a refresher) and today’s answers and find out.

1) Answer: Sandra was born in 1942 as (b) Alexandra Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey.

2) Answer: This is a trick question. All options apply. Our favorite is (b) Queen of Teens.

3) Answer: Dee was a success as a child model by age (c) 12 years old. She made her first movie by age 14.

4) Answer: Sandra and Bobby Darin cemented their romance while making the romantic comedy Come September. It was an innocuous romantic comedy costarring a firmly-in-the-closet Rock Hudson and Italian bombshell Gina Lollobrigida. Dee was considered an experienced professional at the time she made the picture. Darin was just starting out. That Come September was filmed in Italy may have help promote the couple’s burgeoning romance. By the time it came out, they were hitched.

5) Answer: Dee and Darin married in 1960, and divorced (b) seven years later.

6) Answer: c) Debbie Reynolds, who set forth the character (a rustic teenage girl looking for romance) in 1957′s Tammy and the Bachelor. Sandra took over the role in the two big sequels, 1961′s Tammy Tell Me True and 1963′s Tammy and the Doctor.

7) Answer: Actually, all options are correct. No wonder Dee died at the relatively early age of 62 in 2005.

8) Answer: c) John Saxson, a solid supporting actor whose career spans decades (he is in his eighties) and whose darkly handsome looks (he was born Carmine Orrico in Brooklyn) was ideal for the teenager roles he was assigned in the late Fifties and early Sixties. With Dee in The Restless Years and The Reluctant Debutante, both 1958, and 1960′s Portrait In Black.

9) Answer: As indicated by today’s Quiz introduction, Grease.

10) Answer: a) True. Dee’s last film of note was director Curtis Hanson’s 1970 horror item, The Dunwich Horror. It was an independently made picture, with Sandra costarring with Dean Stockwell and Ed Begley. The movie turned out to be quite popular, spawning a sequel and tv offshoots (all without Sandra).

A few weeks ago, on Dec. 2 to be exact, we featured a blog about Sandra Dee. And, frankly, we were pleasantly surprised by the relatively large volume of reader interest generated. We suspect our faithful followers would probably appreciate more, and we’re here today to give it to ‘em.

Thus our Sandra Dee Monday Quiz. Yes, we know that she can hardly be classified a classic movie figure. The best argument we can make for her Quiz status is that Sandra was an immensely popular, money-making Hollywood star throughout nearly half of the 1960′s, during which the studio system was crumbling (she was the last actress to be put under contract at Universal Pictures.)

Modern audiences will also appreciate that Dee’s apparently luminous marriage to a famous singer and her pristine image as the teenage girl-next-door hardly squared with the reality of her private life.

We’ll explore both her screen time and some of her private travail in our Monday Quiz. So, let’s get going. As usual, questions today, answers tomorrow.

3) Question: We know that Dee’s career began at a very early age. How early? a) seven; b) nine; c) 12; or d) 19.

4) Question: Dee’s marriage to singer Bobby Darin took place at the height of her career. During the making of which movie did she first meet the singer? a) 1957′s Until They Sail; b) 1961′s Come September; c) 1958′s The Reluctant Debutante; or d) 1965′s That FunnyFeeling.

5) Question: How long did Dee’s marriage to Darin last? a) 15 years; b) seven years; c) two years; or d) nine years.

6) Question: Dee replaced a famous predecessor in the Tammy movie series. Can you name this actress? a) Jane Powell; b) Marie Windsor; c) Debbie Reynolds or d) Tuesday Weld.

7)Question: Dee had throughout her life her share of mental and physical ailments. Which one of the following is NOT included? a) alcoholism; b) throat cancer; b) child molestation victim; or d) bouts of manic depression.

8) Question: Dee’s favorite costar might well have been this actor, who had career of sorts as a dark leading man. Who is he? a) Fabio; b) Fabian; c) John Saxon; or d) James Dean.

9) Question: Which long-running Broadway musical and later a hit film of the same title mentions Sandra in a light-hearted song that for a while at least brought Dee back into the spotlight? (Hint: check out our Dec. 2 blog, Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee.)

10) Question: Although she had costarred with an A-list cast in director Douglas Sirk’s 1959 weepie Imitation of Life, Dee ended her career starring in a cheaply made horror movie. a) True; or b) False.

Dave Kehr, formerly of the The New York Times, hit on something when he questioned why one of our favorite films is pretty much the standard bearer of Christmas movies.

Kehr once wrote: With its bleak, film-noir imagery and barely suppressed undertone of suicidal despair, Frank Capra’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946) has somewhat mysteriously assumed an unshakable position as America’s official holiday film.

While we are delighted it has, we concede that there is an element of the downright scary in It’s A Wonderful Life.

It is, after all, the story of a small town savings and loan man (James Stewart) facing financial devastation at the hands of a banking institution run by the viciously unscrupulous Lionel Barrymore. With home foreclosures still cropping up in daily headlines, elements of the movie’s plot resemble today’s unsettling conditions.

Perhaps a modicum of fear is necessary for a good Christmas movie. In 1951′s Scrooge, the fine British actor Alastair Sim etches a hard-to-forget picture of an addled, confused old man terrified by the three ghostly visions presented to him. This Scrooge is metaphorically scared straight.

Frightening in a wholly different way is 1954′s White Christmas, a saccharine Paramount outing — the first movie filmed in Vistavision, no less — built around Irving Berlin’s seasonal chestnut about the joys of being snowbound during the holidays. It’s a romantic comedy with music costarring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. The guys play song-and-dance men who fall for a pair of sisters. The saving grace is that Crosby’s vocal gifts actually make I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas quite listenable.

Crosby introduced the song in 1942 in Holiday Inn, which, as we suggested yesterday is a much better picture.

Kehr has a suggestion about a suitable holiday movie in lieu of It’s A Wonderful Life.

For those in search of a more vibrant, warmhearted and subtly melancholic seasonal celebration there is Vincente Minnelli’s 1944 musical ‘Meet Me in St. Louis.’

Tonight we all await Santa. But some of us will stil watch old, classic films. Which ones to choose?

There are the old standbys — It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, The Bishop’sWife, the various versions of A Christmas Carol. There are the “newer” classics — films such as The Holiday, The Santa Clause, The Christmas Story, Home Alone.

There’s Christmas in Connecticut, The Holiday Affair, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Remember the Night.

Well, we have an off beat selection for you this year. We like Holiday Inn (skip the remake/update White Christmas). Great songs, great performances.

Try The Lemon DropKid, a Bob Hope film which introduced the standard “Silver Bells.” Or Debbie Reynolds in Susan Slept Here.

And how about a Christmas western? Check out John Wayne‘s version of The Three Godfathers.

Louella was short, dumpy and unattractive, a three-times married Catholic who delivered innumerable Hollywood “excloooseeves” (as she pronounced it) for the Hearst publishing empire and its Los Angeles Examiner flagship. Orson Welles was her bete noir.

Hedda, an ex chorus girl and character actress, was better looking — tall and thin, and elegant of appearance who barked out questions like a county prosecutor. (You can check her out via her cameo role in Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic, Sunset Blvd.). Hopper’s flagship paper was TheLos Angeles Times. Hedda despised Charlie Chaplin.

Together, their daily reports of studio coups, production snafus and star indiscretions reached some 75 million readers, giving the columnists enormous power in an inherently nervous town.

These two gutsy women were at various times called vindictive, semi-literate, often inaccurate and ‘ silly women.’ Whatever, they influenced Hollywood movie making and mores for nearly three decades.

It only needed one of these ladies to hint that an actor or actress was ‘box office poison’ for contracts to be terminated and studio doors to be slammed, wrote actor David Niven in his very entertaining 1975 memoir, Bring on the Empty Horses.

Niven pointedly noted that this unlikely couple had this in common – they loathed each other.

Anecdotes about the pair’s reporting gaffes are numerous, but nowhere near as numerous as their combined scoops.

Competition between the two was ferocious. Hedda supposedly ran with an item calling George Burns the lousiest actor she ever saw. Angered, Louella supposedly phoned Burns complaining to HIM that she didn’t get the item first.

Niven felt that a large part of their columns was pure fabrication. He wrote that Hedda once tried to dissuade Elizabeth Taylor from marrying British actor Michael Wilding because he had indulged in homosexual relations with Stewart Granger.

Despite Niven’s assertions that Wilding was indeed heterosexual, Hopper decided to run with the item anyway in a book she was preparing. The upshot: Hedda and her publisher were sued for three million dollars and had to cough up a hefty settlement and an abject apology.

Then there is the matter of Joseph Cotten and Deanna Durbin, the Southern Virginia gentlemen and the wholesome wunderkind from Winnepeg. In 1943, the pair were costarring at Universal in the 1943 musical drama, Hers To Hold.

According to Cotten’s most readable 1987 autobiography, Vanity Will Get You Somewhere, the two coincidentally slept over one night — separately — in their respective studio quarters, arriving at the lot an hour apart from each other. (Cotten observers, including Welles, differ about that sleeping separately claim. But no matter.)

Shortly after Hopper’s phone rang, the item appeared in her column that Cotten and Durbin, married to others at the time, were indeed an item. Cotten was furious, and phoned the columnist with this statement: If you mention my name in your column personally again, I’ll kick you in the ass.

At a swanky dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel soon after, Cotten did just that. Hedda was sitting in a cane-bottomed chair, and contact (of the kick) was positive enough to disturb the flower garden on top of one of the outrageous hats for which she was renowned, Cotten wrote.

After a moment of stunned silence a “group of gentlemen” surrounded the actor, carrying him from the room on their shoulders to the bar, where I was toasted in champagne by all.

Niven is generous overall in his assessment of the columnists. It took guts and ability for Hedda and Louella to rise to the top of this inkstained pile of professional reporters, and it took tremendous stamina and craftiness on their part to remain there for a quarter of a century.

Hedda died in 1966 at the age of 80. Louella outlived her, expiring at 91 in 1972.

There he is above, with Jean Simmons, in yet another epic. Victor Mature made at least four of these elephantine Biblical spectaculars, thus appearing in some of the most popular movies of the Forties and Fifties.

We prefer in in the sprinkling of fim noirs in which his durable performances were sometimes upstaged by the wild antics of others in the cast (see #6 below). Ah, those lidded eyes, the full mouth and oddly off-kilter stare. And, standing six-feet-two, Mature proved to be a strong physical presence and occasionally, catnip to his leading ladies.

How much do you know about this solid but often overlooked actor? Let’s get to the answers to our Monday Quiz to find out. (As for the questions, just scroll down to the blog below.)

1) Answer: d) Mature did not work with director Vincente Minnelli. But he did with all the other distinguished names.

2) Answer: b) In her her extraordinarily frank 1999 autobiography Esther Williams wrote that during her second marriage to Ben Gage, she was attracted to Mature, her costar in 1952′s Million Dollar Mermaid: I knew that he wanted me, and I wanted him…One night, after doing a steamy love scene that was more than adequate foreplay, we went to my dressing room ….That first night, we made love over and over into exhaustion.

3) Answer: All choices except for d) Mr. Brilliantine, although the actor’s hair style seemed suited to the product.

5) Answer: a) True. Mature’s first movie was a Hal Roach comedy, 1939′s TheHousekeeper’s Daughter. He played a gangster.

6) Answer: Mature’s performance was upstaged by that of Richard Widmark’s Tommy Udo, a deranged criminal who pushes a wheelchair-bound woman down a long flight of stairs while laughing maniacally. Poor Victure Mature, wrote critic Eddie Muller. He gave probably his best performance in ‘Kiss of Death,’ but nobody noticed.

7) Answer: a) 1946′s My Darling Clementine.

8) Answer: b) False. Mature, married five times, was not known for his religiosity.

9) Answer: b) False. Mature played a Tarzan-like creature in Hal Roach’s 1940 outing, One Million B.C. (His costar was scantily clad Carol Landis.) But he never was seriously considered for the actual Tarzan part.

10) Answer: d) Cecil B. DeMille who castigated Mature on the set of Samson andDelilah for not performing various stunts including one which called for the actor to stick his head in the mouth of a lion.

One of our favorite classic movie anecdotes goes as follows: A post-retirement Victor Mature found himself in an elevator at a high-end New York City department store. In walked two well-dressed women of a certain age.

Isn’t that VictorMature?, asked one woman.

The other woman responded: Victor Mature! Isn’t he dead?

From the rear of the elevator, Mature piped up: I am, and I’m not.

Yes, it’s true that most people, if they remember him at all, remember Victor Mature as Sampson in Cecil B.DeMille‘s 1949 Biblicalepic Sampson and Delilah.

Mature never did take himself nor his career all that seriously. I’m no actor, he once remarked, and I’ve got 64 pictures to prove it. (Mature exaggerated a bit; he logged 56 movie and tv credits over a 45-year career.)

Still in all, he appeared in a range of pictures which included some of the biggest hits of the Forties and Fifties. And, most important to us, he made some fine film noirs for which he gets insufficient credit.

How much do you know about Victor Mature? Take our Quiz and find out. As usual, questions today and answers tomorrow. Here we go:

1) Question: While Mature is sometimes dismissed as an actor, he did manage to work with some first-rate directors. Which of the following did the actor NOT work with? a) Josef von Sternberg; b) Jacques Tourneur; c) Vittorio DeSica; or d) Vincente Minnelli.

2) Question: Which of Mature’s leading ladies wrote openly and explicitly about their extra-marital affair during the making of a big MGM picture? a) Hedy Lamarr; b) Esther Williams; c) Gene Tierney; or d) Jean Simmons.

3) Question: Which one of the follow nicknames was NOT applied to Mature? a) The Hunk; b) Beautiful Hunk of Man; c) Mr. Beefcake or d) Mr. Brilliantine.

4) Question: Can you name the pictures in which Mature was a) blinded and forced to turn a gristmill; b) spreadeagled on a torture table inside a dungeon; c) flogged at least two separate times; and d) spread out and staked underneath a looming tarantula?

5) Question: Although hardly known as a funnyman, Mature began his career making comedies. a) True; or b) False?

6) Question: Mature’s solid performance in 1949′s Kiss of Death as an ex-con trying to protect his family from a madman was totally upstaged by the antics of another actor in the movie. Can you name this actor, and what exactly did he do?

7) Question: A Mature career highlight was which one of these John Ford westerns? a) My Darling Clementine; b) Stagecoach; c) Red River; or d) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.

8) Question: Despite his lusty public image, Mature was a churchgoing Christian who married just once in his life. a) True; or b) False?

9) Question: Early in his career, Mature was stung by his rejection as a prospective Tarzan. a) True; or b) False?

10) Question: Despite the macho image, Mature had his share of on-set fears and phobias, and was called “100 percent yellow” by which one of the following directors? a) Anthony Mann; b) Frank Borzage; c) John Ford; or d) Cecil B. Demille.

Although she is best remembered for her role in the sci fi classic Forbidden Planet, AnneFrancis co-starred in one of Joe’s favorite films, Susan Slept Here. And although she was only 2 years older than Debbie Reynolds, who starred in the title role opposite DickPowell, Anne played the older woman.

Francis started her career as a model when a small child, and by 17 had entered films. Never a top star she nonetheless had a decent career and appeared in a few good films, most notably, Bad Day at Black Rock, and Blackboard Jungle.

After a successful series on TV, Honey West, she returned to movies with a small but showy part in Funny Girl.

Now about those celebrities in Wednesday’s photo. We can spot Ava Gardner, Lana Turner and then hubby Bob Topping, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, Larry Parks and (hidden) Betty Garrett, and Jane Wyman. Can any reader identify anyone else?